In the mid-eighties there was not a moderately attractive priest in Spanish parishes who was not nicknamed The Thorn Bird.
The influence of the series starring Richard Chamberlain (Los Angeles, 89 years old) was enormous, not only in Spain.
In the United States, it attracted more than 110 million viewers to the screen.
But that priest caught between his faith, his ambition and the love of a woman was not the only role that earned him a privileged place in the pantheon of television stars.
At that time he was already known as “the king of miniseries” thanks to his roles in
Dr. Kildare
,
Shogun
and
The Count of Monte Cristo
.
For two decades he competed for television spots with beauties like Kabir Bedi,
Sandokan;
David Soul,
Hutch,
or Robin Ellis,
Poldark.
Chamberlain was not only dazzled by her more European than Californian beauty, closer to Helmut Berger than Burt Reynolds, but also by his talent.
The combination of both opened the doors of television, cinema and Broadway.
But no role was more difficult than that of the heterosexual heartthrob.
He played it until in 2003, at the age of 69 and after considering that he no longer had anything to lose, he confessed the truth in his autobiography
From Him Shattered Love
.
“I thought there was something very, very deeply wrong with me.
And I wanted to cover it up.
He didn't want anyone to ever know.
I made a pact with myself that he would never reveal this secret.”
His editor knew that he liked to write and had asked him for some pages.
He began developing a kind of philosophical treatise until his inner voice, as he would later say, sent him a message: “Richard, there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with you, in your life and in being gay.
It is totally irrelevant to your value as a human being.
Give up all that fear, give up all that hiding.
“Just quit.”
Richard Chamberlain in 1964.Screen Archives (Getty Images)
I suspected that this confession would overshadow the rest of the book's content.
He suspected well.
No one cared about the abuse suffered at the hands of his alcoholic father, much less the intricacies of his successful career: they just wanted to know more about his intimacy and he no longer wanted to hide it.
For too long he had lived in fear of what was an open secret in the industry becoming public.
“The magazines did a lot of interviews and they were suspicious.
They asked me questions like: 'When are you getting married?'
'Are you going to have children?'
In 1989 a French magazine had revealed it, but his publicist took it upon herself to deny it.
Fifteen years after that moment that could have destroyed his career, he sat before Larry King and spoke with complete naturalness about the discovery of his homosexuality at the age of ten and about his first relationship with a man, which did not come until turned 23.
There was no bitterness in him, he accepted it as another rule of the game and was able to take refuge in Europe, where the atmosphere was more relaxed than in the puritanical United States.
But his place was Hollywood.
“I got used to being careful and on guard.
I would have been a happier person being out of the closet and being free.
But he had other reasons to be happy.
He was an actor with a job and for me it was the most important thing.”
Richard Chamberlain and Amanda Donohoe in 'The Thorn Bird'.CBS Photo Archive (CBS via Getty Images)
Chamberlain was born and raised in Beverly Hills.
After graduating he fought in the Korean War (where he became a sergeant) and upon returning he began studying acting.
He was clear that he wanted to be an actor, that he “wanted to live other lives.”
His beauty did not go unnoticed by television executives, eager to activate a medium that was beginning to forge his personality and show his power to create stars.
While they were looking for a fresh and new face to play Dr. Kildare (in the 1961 series of the same name), someone found his face in a
western
that had never seen the light of day.
He barely had any experience, but he ended up playing it for five seasons that showed him the immense power of the medium.
The king of TV
He couldn't go out into the street without being chased by a horde of fans.
Dr. Kildare
was an instant and unpredictable hit.
He received about 12,000 letters a week, more than Clark Gable.
He still regrets not having negotiated his contract better: he imagined that a series of doctors would have no publicity benefit.
He was wrong, because a few months later even stethoscopes with his face were being sold.
His popularity was such that NBC tried to make him a musical star and he had the privilege of being the first to record the hugely popular
Close to You
by Burt Bacharach, which would end up becoming The Carpenters' biggest hit.
He exploited his talent for music in the Broadway adaptations of
Breakfast at Tiffany's
,
My Fair Lady
and
The Sound of Music
, but television claimed him again and again.
At the BBC he starred in the adaptation of
Portrait of a Lady
(1968) and shared the screen with Katherine Hepburn in
The Madwoman of Chaillot
(1969).
They were recording together when she discovered that she had won the Oscar for
Guess Who's Coming Tonight
and she made a phrase that is history: “They always give it to you for the wrong role.”
He could think the same about fame: he wanted to succeed in the theater, but it was on the screen where he had his greatest successes.
Also in the big one.
He was Aramis in Richard Lester's
The Three Musketeers
(1973) and its sequel, and also the negligent engineer in
The Burning Colossus
(1974).
It was not his only disaster film with a cast full of stars in decline, he was also part of the crazy
The Enjambre
(1978).
And then came the role that made him a star around the world.
Shogun
(1980) was one of the many series that were born in the heat of
Raíces
, the most watched miniseries in the history of American television (Disney+ has just released a new version in which Chamberlain, now retired, does not appear).
The adaptation of James Clavell's best-selling novel about the misadventures of an English sailor in medieval Japan offered American viewers a world just as unknown, but one that made them feel less guilty about slavery: there everything was settled between the English, the Portuguese and Japanese.
NBC wanted a star to star in a production that would involve enormous expenses.
Clavell, who served as executive producer, had Sean Connery in mind, but the Scotsman considered television a lesser medium and did not want to lower himself.
Albert Finney, who was the second choice, was not free to shoot.
Chamberlain, in love with the novel, insisted for years that he was the right man, but the producers did not understand how that delicate Californian could get into the shoes of the tough British sailor John Blackthorne and they wondered if he could endure an acting duel with the legendary Toshiro Mifune. , Kurosawa's fetish actor.
Toshiro Mifune and Richard Chamberlain in 'Shogun'.Silver Screen Collection (Getty Images)
As soon as they did the first test, the doubts were dispelled.
Not only did it work in the action scenes, for which he had prepared thoroughly, but it brought a fragility and bewilderment to the character that would not have been available to Connery.
Filming was chaotic: neither the American cast spoke Japanese nor the Japanese spoke English and the storms didn't help either, but it became NBC's most watched weekly series.
Spectators were mesmerized by their ancestral rituals and an unknown level of violence.
Richard Chamberlain in the miniseries 'Shogun' (1980).Silver Screen Collection (Getty Images)
Shogun
caused the streets to empty during its broadcast, created a wave of fascination with the oriental and brought Chamberlain back to the covers of magazines.
But if he thought that this would be his zenith, he was wrong.
When he was approaching fifty, Father Ralph came into his life.
The Thornbird
(1983) was going to be a film directed by Herbert Ross and starring Christopher Reeve, then it went to Peter Weir and Robert Redford and finally to Arthur Hiller and Ryan O'Neal, but the success of the miniseries, the great phenomenon of television in the 1980s, convinced ABC that the best vehicle for its product was television, and Chamberlain's name emerged.
"A wise person in Hollywood once talked about how he had gotten all my roles: 'There are better actors in town, but Richard ensures an audience.'
“He is the nicest thing anyone in the industry has said about me,” he recalled years later.
Once again he destroyed the audiometers, despite the fact that the Catholic Conference opposed its broadcast in the middle of Holy Week.
“It's a story about the fact that women tend to fall in love with men they can't have.
That crosses all cultures and borders,” her author, Colleen McCullough, had said of her work.
And, indeed, there was no border that he did not cross.
The world went crazy over Bricassart's father Ralph and his forbidden love for Meggie.
Although not exactly everyone: for McCulloug it was “instant vomiting.”
Barbara Stanwick played the wealthy mature woman who used her power and influence to seduce the ambitious Bricassart and, at one point when she had to touch Chamberlain's naked torso, she forgot her dialogue.
And the protagonist of
Perdition
never missed a line.
Richard Chamberlain at his home in New York in 1976.Santi Visalli (Getty Images)
The chemistry between Rachel Ward and Chamberlain was so obvious that the media spread an alleged romance, although the truth is that she was beginning a romance with Bryan Brown that continues 40 years later.
So does her friendship with Chamberlain.
His last major television role was
The Bourne Identity
(1988).
Years before Matt Damon revitalized the role, he filmed with Charlie's Angel Jacklyn Smith a highly entertaining miniseries that earned him a new Golden Globe nomination. If on television he has been almost infallible, in film his career has been discreet and includes some laughable title like the
Casanova
he played alongside Faye Dunaway in 1987 or his role as Allan Quatermain alongside Sharon Stone in
King Solomon's Mines
(1985) and its sequel.
That filming has become a legend due to Stone's rudeness: rumors claimed that it had been so unbearable that before filming a scene in which he submerged himself in a tub of water, some members of the technical team had urinated in it.
He, however, has great memories of that work.
The actor who played his brother was actually his partner, Martin Rabbett.
They were together until 2010.
Richard Chamberlain in 2017.Jason LaVeris (FilmMagic)
In 2019, at 85, he retired after a final stage in which he got even for so many years of hiding by playing mainly homosexual characters.
He appeared in
Five Brothers, Chuck, Nip/Tuck
or the new
Twin Peaks,
where we could see that he continued to keep his magnetism intact.
About to turn 90, he lives in Hawaii and is a happy retiree.
And without secrets.
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